IndiGo, India's largest airline by fleet and market share has set its sights on the lucrative United States market through an existing codeshare with Turkish Airlines. In a joint filing by Turkish Airlines and IndiGo with the US Department of Transportation, the nodal agency for such filing and approvals, the airlines have asked for “expedited approval of the application”, a standard practice for such cases.
When accepted, IndiGo will be able to sell flights to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C.
A codeshare agreement is an arrangement between airlines that allows passengers to seamlessly transfer from one operator’s flight to that of another by using the same flight number.
Indigo’s competitor Air India has non-stop flights to New York, Newark, San Francisco and Washington D.C.
What is IndiGo’s plan?
IndiGo, which started a codeshare with Turkish Airlines in 2019, has gone from strength to strength after the pandemic. After initially launching with 20 destinations, the arrangement has steadily seen expansion to more destinations within Europe and this filing shows how the eyes are set on a bigger expansion.
IndiGo started operating a Turkish damp-leased B777 between Delhi and Istanbul starting February 01 giving it a huge boost in capacity. The Business class on these flights is sold exclusively by Turkish Airlines while both airlines sell economy class.
When approved, the Turkish Airlines flights to twelve destinations in the US will also have a “6E” code on the flights and will be the first time that IndiGo flight numbers will be listed at airports in the US.
The permission specifically asks for placing a “6E” code on certain flights operated between Turkey and the US to cater to IndiGo’s India - US traffic. While the application requests blanket approvals for all points in future, it specifically mentions the twelve destinations, to begin with. It is clear that the airlines want to start as soon as possible since they have requested a 45-day waiting period waiver for this request. The application states carriage of people, cargo and mail.
When operational, one could see the IndiGo code on the FIDS (Flight Information Display System) at airports in the US.
Beyond Europe
IndiGo has been expanding its Turkish codeshare one step at a time but the US is significant and comes at a time when there has been a material shift in the comfort levels of its services to Istanbul from Delhi, solely because of the deployment of a Turkish Airlines B777 on damp lease. Besides, the longer leg of the journey to the US will be on Turkish Airlines - which comes with all the necessary frills of a Full Service carrier.
With Air India rapidly expanding and every other airline vying for the growing market between India and the US, any incremental passengers that IndiGo can poach via its own booking would be incremental revenue.
This may not have an impact on Air India, since Air India flies non-stop to the US and that has become its USP especially at a time when the Russian airspace is closed for American carriers and that gives Air India an edge like never before. Yet, India - US traffic is an ocean with passengers trying to connect from every possible region and option and IndiGo at best would be looking at Salami slicing this large pie which is lucrative.
Other codeshares of IndiGo?
The Turkish Airlines codeshare with IndiGo is different from IndiGo’s other codeshare with the likes of Qantas or Air France - KLM. While IndiGo actively places its code on Turkish Airlines flights, the other ones are largely to open new points within India for Qantas or Air France - KLM, which helps passengers reach their final destination in India via the IndiGo hubs and connect better thanks to the extensive red-eye flight's network of the airline catering to late night arrivals from international destinations.
Air France - KLM caters to nearly the same destinations which Turkish Airlines does but IndiGo does not sell it jointly.
Tail Note
IndiGo has seen an overnight spurt in capacity between India and Istanbul and that is slated to go up even further starting in May. The additional seats are being effectively used to feed the vast Turkish Airlines network from Istanbul. Often seen as a measure to bypass the bilateral restriction right now, the new seat deployment is helping IndiGo reach newer shores and in this case across the Atlantic, very soon.
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